1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a contents data reproduction apparatus and a method to be used for such an apparatus for the purpose of reproducing contents data from a recording medium storing them.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recording/reproduction apparatus adapted to record data to and/or reproduce data from a recording medium such as a CD (compact disc), an MD (mini disc) (trademark) or a DVD (digital versatile disc), an HDD (hard disc drive), apparatus adapted to record data to and/or reproduce data from a semiconductor memory and recording/reproduction apparatus including a semiconductor memory can randomly access the contents data. Therefore, such apparatus are equipped with a reproduction feature of not reproducing contents data such as music data and image data (including moving image data) in the default order of reproductions or the order of recordings but incidentally reproducing contents in a manner like “shuffled reproductions” or “random reproductions”. Such apparatus can also reproduce contents data according to the sequence specified by the user as “programmed reproduction”.
As recording mediums become to be able to store more and more contents, it is difficult to manage the recorded files (contents data). To cope with such a situation, there have been proposed techniques of moving data in a temporary memory from which data can be taken out according to the frequency of use of the data and deleting data that are not frequently used and those of looking into the tendency of selection of music data of the user and preparing and presenting favorite contents data of the user (see, for example, Patent Document 1: Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-213836).
Additionally, techniques that make it possible to reproduce contents data so as to reflect the preference of the user by orderly arranging music data in a hard disc according to the evaluation points given and input directly by the user and reproducing contents according to the evaluation points have also been proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 2: Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-38541).